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University of Arkansas at Little RockMon, 30 Mar 2015 19:20:08 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1Predicted Aurora Eventhttp://ualr.edu/tv/2015/03/17/predicted-aurora-event/
http://ualr.edu/tv/2015/03/17/predicted-aurora-event/#commentsTue, 17 Mar 2015 19:17:45 +0000http://ualr.edu/tv/?p=1465There is a geomagnetic storm currently underway due to a recent outburst from the Sun. Northern tier states have already been seeing aurora activity…

]]>There is a geomagnetic storm currently underway due to a recent outburst from the Sun. Northern tier states have already been seeing aurora activity and the storm is predicted to continue for several more hours and may in fact intensify. Now, I’m NOT saying that we will see them here in Arkansas but we have had them in the past after a particularly strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) event. Northern counties of the state and even Little Rock has seen them in the past, most recently in 2011 when one was seen and photographed in Ozark, AR. So again: I am not predicting an aurora event for our area but it is not outside the realm of possibility. I suggest watching the Spaceweather.com site for updates.http://www.spaceweather.com/

Should conditions work in our favor then you will need a good view to the northern horizon, and clear, dark skies.

Marketa Murray, a photographer who lives in Alaska says of last night’s auroras: “The auroras were insane. I have never seen anything like this.”

This particular event is the strongest geomagnetic storm of the current solar cycle.
Info on auroras and observing them can be found here:http://www.skyandtelescope.com/ob…/an-aurora-watchers-guide/

Hi everyone, I’m Darrell Heath with the UALR College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences; welcome to The Night Sky.

On a March evening in the year 1744 a 13-year-old boy living in Lorraine, France saw an amazing spectacle in the night sky that would inspire him to make astronomy his life’s work. The boy’s name was Charles Messier and the spectacle was the Great Comet of 1744. At the time that Messier observed the comet it had become so bright that it could be seen during the daytime and it displayed a stunning six tails that reached well above the horizon and fanned out in all directions.

This remarkable sight had a lasting impression upon the young Messier and he knew then that he wanted to become not only an astronomer but a famous comet hunter as well. Discovering a comet in those days meant fame and fortune for whomever found one and Messier was definitely bitten by the comet-hunting bug.

In 1751, at the age of 21, Messier moved to Paris where he became the assistant to astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle of the Naval Observatory. The observatory itself was a rather humble affair located in the stair tower of the Hotel de Cluny, which had once been the residence of Benedictine monks, and, in terms of prestige, stood within the shadow of the French Royal Observatory. The Naval Observatory and Delisle were not part of the in-crowd of European astronomy and Messier would have to work hard to become accepted by his more formally trained academic peers.

For seven long years Messier toiled away at his apprenticeship and he finally got his first real assignment in 1758 when Halley’s Comet was predicted to reappear. Messier’s mentor had done his own calculations of the comet’s orbit and determined that it would make its closest approach to the Sun sometime in April of 1759. Delisle assigned Messier the task of finding it before anyone else could. He began hunting in the summer of 1758 and he stuck to his master’s predicted orbital path but he had no success until the night of January 21st, 1759. Unfortunately it wasn’t where Delisle said it would be and Messier soon found out that a farmer in Saxony had beaten him to the punch by spotting the comet a month before on Christmas night of 1758.

Even more frustrating for Messier was the fact that his master would not let him publish an account of his independent discovery; Delisle did not want the rest of the scientific community to know that he had erred in his calculations. Delisle finally allowed Messier to publish the news months later but the Royal astronomers were highly suspicious of the late publication and refused to acknowledge Messier’s discovery.

Prior to the 18th century comets were usually discovered with the unaided eye and Charles Messier was the first person to really apply a systematic approach to their discovery. He would scan regions of the sky with a telescope looking for faint and fuzzy blobs of light that might be a comet. After spotting such a blob he would then carefully record it’s position and then watch it over a period of many nights. If it moved relative to the background stars then it was a comet, if not then it was something else. The usual name given to these objects in the “something else” category was “nebula”, which simply meant it was a faint, misty patch and no one really knew what it was. The problem for Messier was that the night sky has a lot of these comet impostor objects and he began to get fed up with wasting so much time on them. He decided that he should catalog all of these nuisance nebulae to save him and any other comet hunters from having to concern themselves with them.

Messier would go on to become the most famous comet discoverer of his time. He was obsessed with finding these dirty snowballs in space, so much so that King Louis XV dubbed him the “comet ferret”. From 1758 to 1804 Messier would spend 1100 nights diligently searching for comets, he observed 44 altogether, more than the total known before him. He discovered 21 comets in total, 6 being co-discoveries. His most famous find was the Great Comet of 1769, sometimes called Napoleon’s Comet because Bonaparte was born a week after its discovery and who, years later, would award Messier with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. With these and other discoveries Messier finally became a member of the international scientific community and, eventually, he even gained acceptance among members of the French astronomy establishment.

After a long and fruitful life Charles Messier died on April 11th, 1817. But in a twist of fate it turned out that we remember Messier today, not for his comet discoveries, but for his catalog of nuisance nebula objects. You see, the great irony is, that in his attempt to create a list of objects that comet hunters should avoid he inadvertently created a catalog of some of the most amazing deep-sky objects the night sky has to offer.

Today the catalog contains a total of 109 celestial objects and while no one knew what they were in Messier’s time science and technology have allowed us to gain not only much better views than was available through 18th century telescopes but also a deeper understanding as to just what the objects are.

Here are just a few of my favorites.

Messier (or, M) 1, The Crab Nebula in the constellation of Taurus. While Messier was searching for Halley’s Comet in 1758 he came across this faint and fuzzy blob and mistook it for the famous comet. After spending several nights watching it to see if it moved against the background stars he came up with the idea for his catalog. We now know that the Crab Nebula is the remnant of a supernova seen by Chinese astrologers nearly a thousand years ago in the year 1054 A.D. Today we can still observe the cloud of gas and dust expanding out into space.

Messier 27, The Ring Nebula. This small, glowing cloud of gas and dust represents the last gasps of a dying star similar to our own Sun. The star’s core has ran out of fusible material, contracted in upon itself and become extremely hot. This has resulted in the star ejecting its outer layers in a glowing shell of gas that surrounds the white-hot core.

Messier 42, the Orion Nebula and arguably the most spectacular of all the Messier objects. M42 is a vast glowing cloud of gas and dust where stars are being born. It is also the most photographed of any deep sky object.

Messier 45, the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus. M45 is an open star cluster, a loose collection of hundreds of stars that were all born from within the same stellar nursery. The radiation from these hot young stars has cleared away all of the nebula material from which they were born and they now sparkle like diamonds in the night.

Messier 13, the Great Hercules Cluster is a spectacular example of a globular star cluster. Globular clusters can contain thousands or even a million or more stars all tightly packed together in a ball that is only a few hundred light years or so in diameter. They are also very ancient with some clusters being estimated at around 12 billion years old, almost as old as the universe itself.

Messier 81 and 82, Bode’s Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy in Ursa Major. Both galaxies are about 12 million light years away and the thing I like best about them is that you can get both within the same field of view whether you are using binoculars or a small telescope.

Every amateur astronomer begins his or her adventures with a telescope by trying to see as many of the Messier objects as possible and during March or April every year astronomy clubs all across the northern hemisphere hold Messier Marathons in which participants stay up all night to try and see all 109 in a single night. It’s both a daunting and grueling challenge to say the least and it’s difficult to say whether the participants are just dedicated or a little crazy. Being an amateur astronomer myself I can say that it’s probably a little of both. Either way, a Messier marathon is just a lot of fun and it gives amateur astronomers a chance to not only hone their observing skills but to also enjoy the company of their fellow stargazers while engaging in a bit of friendly competition.

So, merci mon ami Messier. Even though your catalog serves an entirely different purpose now than the one you originally intended for it we astronomers are forever in your debt for cataloging this incredible assortment of celestial eye candy.

Hello, I’m Darrell Heath with the UALR College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences, welcome to The Night Sky.

When I was a boy of about 10 or 11 I became hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels. For weeks on end I stuffed my head on these planetary science fiction adventures and craving more I then turned to his Carson of Venus novels. Burroughs had a tendency to recycle his plots but I didn’t care, I just wanted more wild adventure stories that took place on other planets.

Whereas his version of Mars was that of a dry and dying world inhabited by an assortment of exotic aliens and creatures, his Venus was that of a tropical paradise. According to Burroughs, Venus was a planet enshrouded by water-laden clouds and beneath those clouds was a world that was mostly ocean with a few landmasses covered in jungle. What’s more there were giant reptiles aplenty and for a boy who was also in love with dinosaurs Venus seemed like the place for me.

On paper Venus and Earth do appear to be twin sisters of one another: both are very similar in size and mass with Venus being just a bit smaller, both have a similar surface gravity, and both possess substantial atmospheres and even clouds. But there the similarities end. As most of you already know the planet named for the goddess of love is downright nasty.

Orbiting spacecraft using ground penetrating radar as well a probes sent to the surface reveals a world more akin to Hell than paradise. Venus’ surface temperature is a scorching 860 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot enough to melt lead! The atmosphere is so thick that were you able to reach the surface you would be crushed under pressure that is over 90 times what you experience here on Earth. The Venusian atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and those clouds that perpetually enshroud the planet are not made of water vapor but are instead composed of sulfuric acid. No oceans of liquid water cover Venus; its surface is a desolate landscape of scorched rock and thousands of dormant volcanoes.

But was Venus always this way and if not then what made it so inhospitable?

Many astronomers believe that during the first 2 billion years of its history Venus may well have contained oceans of liquid water. In fact, it was this water that eventually led to the planet becoming the hellish world we know today. But the instigator for the transition from paradise to Hell wasn’t the planet but the Sun.

Like any star our Sun has undergone changes during its 4.5 billion year history and will undergo more changes in the distant future. Early on in its life the Sun was much dimmer and cooler than it is today and during this time Venus was on the edge of the habitable zone at around 67 million miles away. But at around 2.5 billion years ago the Sun began to brighten and became much warmer.

Being much closer than the Earth is to the Sun Venus began to warm up and its water began to evaporate to form a thick cloud layer that enshrouded the planet. Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas so, while sunlight was allowed to penetrate the cloud layer, the much longer wavelength of infrared heat energy was prevented from escaping. This made Venus even hotter and even more water vapor entered the atmosphere. The result was a runaway greenhouse effect. Eventually the surface became so hot that carbon was baked out of the rocks, which then entered the atmosphere to create carbon dioxide, another powerful greenhouse gas. Venus’ fate was sealed and all the water on the surface boiled away. Today we can find only traces of water in the atmosphere, the rest has escaped out into space.

In a surprise twist space probes have discovered that at about 31 to 40 miles above the surface there exist conditions that are remarkably Earth-like, in fact you will not find such hospitable conditions anywhere else in the solar system. At these altitudes the atmosphere is actually breathable with a mixture of 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen. But if you plan to visit be sure and bring along the air conditioner because temperatures are at around 167 degrees Fahrenheit.

While human induced global warming will most likely not create conditions as extreme as those on Venus the planet still serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of dumping excess greenhouse gases into our own atmosphere. Even a fraction of those conditions will have devastating consequences for life on Earth.

Whenever Venus is visible in our morning or evening sky it is often the brightest object visible outside of the Moon. All this month you can spot the second planet from the Sun quite easily during the hours of dusk just around and after sunset low along the western horizon. Be sure and look for the much fainter planet, Mars, next to it. Early on in the month Mars will lie about 8 degrees above Venus but as the month wears on they will get closer and closer together. On the nights of February 20th through the 23rd the two are less than one degree apart, a close pairing indeed! On the 21st they are actually a half a degree apart and what’s more we will have a very lovely crescent moon that will be part of the western sky view as well. When Venus and Mars are that close you will need either binoculars or a small telescope to split them apart optically. Now, keep in mind that even though they are close together on the sky they are in fact separated by millions of miles in space.

That’s all for now but be sure and visit our web site for more astronomy news and information. Until next time be sure and get outside to look up and wonder.

]]>http://ualr.edu/tv/2015/02/05/from-venus-with-love-script-feb-2015/feed/0A Star “Ring” Role -http://ualr.edu/tv/2015/01/29/a-star-ring-role/
http://ualr.edu/tv/2015/01/29/a-star-ring-role/#commentsThu, 29 Jan 2015 19:17:41 +0000http://ualr.edu/tv/?p=1410Astronomers have discovered one of the most extraordinary exoplanets yet orbiting around a star very similar in terms of size and mass to our…

]]>Astronomers have discovered one of the most extraordinary exoplanets yet orbiting around a star very similar in terms of size and mass to our own Sun and located some 420 light years away in the constellation of Centaurus. The star, known as J1407, is much younger than our Sun at only 16 million years of age (the Sun is around 4.5 billion years old) and it’s bizarre planet (or possibly a “failed star” known as a “brown dwarf”) J1407b was detected by observing how this alien world blocked some of the star’s light as it passed in front of its parent sun back in 2007. J1407b is much larger than either Jupiter or Saturn and has a ring system that is estimated to be 200 times as large as Saturn’s The image shown is what it might look like in our own sky if you were to substitute our own ring world for this new one.

Hello, I’m Darrell Heath with the UALR College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences, welcome to The Night Sky.

I imagine many of you have stepped outside on a cold winter’s night and noticed just how bright the stars look. Part of this is due to the fact that the atmosphere is more transparent; there’s just less humidity and haze to obscure the starlight. But it’s also due to the fact that our winter sky is filled with more bright stars and constellations than any other time of the year. Some of the most prominent stars in our winter sky can be seen while facing south during the early evening hours this month and include Betelgeuse and Rigel in the constellation of Orion, Aldebaran in Taurus, Capella in Auriga, Castor and Pollux in Gemini, Procyon in Canis Minor and Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky within Canis Major. Most of these stars make up a pattern known as the Winter Hexagon. Such patterns are not constellations however; they are called “asterisms” and are made up of the stars from one or more of the official 88 constellations. You already know one of the most famous of asterisms, “The Big Dipper” within the constellation of Ursa Major seen in our northern sky year round. I suggest you spend a little time learning more about these different stars on your own as they offer a good survey of the types of things you can find within the stellar zoo.

For right now however I want to draw your attention to how, on some nights, these stars twinkle like flickering sparks of light in the dark. All stars can be seen to twinkle at anytime of the year but it seems to be particularly noticeable on winter evenings and even more so with brighter stars than with dimmer ones. Oh, and if you want to amaze and impress your friends you can use the more technical term of “astronomical scintillation” rather than “twinkling”.

So, why do stars scintillate? Take a deep breath. There’s your answer: atmosphere. We live on a planet that is insulated by layers of air with differing densities, temperature, and humidity and it’s always churning. It’s turbulence within the atmosphere that makes the stars twinkle. The photons emitted by the stars have been traveling unimpeded, in straight lines, across trillions of miles of vacuum but once they enter our atmosphere their path can become bent, or refracted. Light refracts when it passes from one medium to another. You’ve seen this effect before when a spoon appears to be bent inside a glass of water. Of course it isn’t the spoon that’s bent, it’s just the way light is being refracted as it passes from the water into the air. In the cold vacuum of space there was nothing to bend the starlight but inside our atmosphere there exists multitudes of tiny packets of air known as cells that are only a few dozen centimeters across and these cells are constantly moving around in all directions, more so when there’s lots of atmospheric disturbance. The cells act like tiny lenses that bend the star’s light back and forth. From our vantage point on the ground the star appears to twinkle.

If you are an especially good observer you might notice that stars low along the horizon seem to twinkle much more than do the stars overhead. Not only that, but some of the stars are also changing colors. When you look at any star while it’s low in the sky you are seeing it though a much thicker layer of air than when it’s directly overhead, and as it’s light is having to travel through more air before finally reaching your eye, it’s also getting refracted more and twinkles more conspicuously than does a star overhead. To see the color change I suggest watching Sirius while it‘s low upon the horizon during the early evening. Finding Sirius is easy, it’s our brightest star, and if you draw a line through Orion’s belt stars, and extend it out and to the left, you will run right into it. When Sirius is high upon the sky it’s light appears as an unchanging white, but when it’s near the horizon and there’s a lot of turbulence you can see it rapidly change colors from white to blue to green and red. The white light of stars actually contains every color of the rainbow but if you pass the light through a prism you can split it into its constituent colors. This is what happens as Sirius’ light passes through all of those cells of air in our atmosphere. If the turbulence is especially bad it can refract the star’s light so much that Sirius looks like a disco ball as it changes colors in fractions of a second. It’s not at all unusual for folks to report seeing a UFO when Sirius is so scintillating.

Now, you’ll sometimes hear folks say that you can always distinguish a planet from a star by the fact that stars twinkle and planets do not. This is mostly true but not always. Around 8PM when Sirius is still low in the southeast look to the east to see the planet Jupiter on the rise. In most cases you’ll see that Jupiter’s light remains steady while Sirius’ may be flickering. Planets don’t appear to twinkle because they are closer to us than the background stars. While not apparent to the naked eye a planet is a disc rather than a pinpoint light source like a star is. Remember, the cells of air in our atmosphere are usually only a few dozens of centimeters across and are too small to make the light from the planet’s disc scintillate very much but are just the right size to really distort the starlight. However, on nights with lots of turbulence even Jupiter may appear to twinkle. Last year at this time I recall trying to observe Jupiter through my telescope on a seemingly calm night. The view through the telescope however told a different story. Jupiter’s disc appeared to shimmer wildly and I couldn’t make out any of the planet’s distinctive features. While twinkling stars can look very pretty they are a royal pain to both amateur and professional astronomers. Twinkling stars means the seeing conditions are bad and you won’t be able resolve stars or planetary details through the eyepiece of a telescope.

Astronomers have had to be very creative in overcoming the limitations of trying to study the universe through an uncooperative atmosphere.

This is a photo of me at the Keck Observatory located 14,000 feet above sea level atop the extinct volcano Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. There are a number of good reasons to build observatories at such altitudes but one of the most important is that the atmosphere is very thin at these elevations and consequently starlight is not distorted as much as it would be at lower altitudes.
But we still aren’t completely free of atmospheric disturbances even at higher elevations so astronomers have had to become even more creative. One of the most inventive and high tech methods astronomers use to compensate for atmospheric distortion is known as “adaptive optics” and involves the use of lasers, deformable mirrors, and supercomputers. To get clear, sharp images from the telescopes at the Keck Observatory astronomers fire a laser up into the atmosphere. Their target is not a star but tiny atoms of sodium located about 60 miles up. The laser excites the sodium atoms for a brief moment and when the atoms return back to their normal un-energized states they emit light. In effect, astronomers are creating an artificial star, although it’s far from being a real star in any shape or form. The light from this false star is analyzed by a computer to determine how the atmosphere is distorting it. Once this is established the computer then sends instructions to the telescope’s mirror to change its shape in order to correct for the light refraction. Over the past decade many other observatories have employed adaptive adaptive optics with much success.

Of course the ultimate way to get around the distorting effects of our atmosphere is to escape it altogether and send telescopes into outer space itself. For 24 years now the Hubble Space Telescope has allowed astronomers to understand our universe in ways never before dreamed of. It has helped us understand how galaxies evolve over time, given us data that has helped refine the age of the universe itself, shown us that supermassive black holes are a ubiquitous component of galaxies, revealed how planets form, and has helped us figure out the rate of expansion of the universe. And the images acquired by the Hubble Telescope have inspired us, filled us with awe, and revealed to us just how beautiful and wondrous the universe really is.

Until next time, I encourage you to experience some of this beauty for yourself by simple stepping outside and looking up in both awe and wonder.

]]>http://ualr.edu/tv/2015/01/09/the-night-sky-january-2015/feed/0Comet Lovejoyhttp://ualr.edu/tv/2014/12/10/comet-lovejoy/
http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/12/10/comet-lovejoy/#commentsWed, 10 Dec 2014 22:51:35 +0000http://ualr.edu/tv/?p=1359We have another comet heading our way. Right now it can be seen in the early morning hours very low in the southern sky…

]]>We have another comet heading our way. Right now it can be seen in the early morning hours very low in the southern sky and you will need binoculars to see it as well as a star chart. Over the coming nights Comet Lovejoy Q2 will climb higher in the sky, become a bit brighter, and appear earlier in the evening. From a dark sky locale it will just barely be visible to the naked eye but binoculars or a small telescope will show it at its best.

]]>http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/12/10/comet-lovejoy/feed/0University Television airs Basketball Game of the Weekhttp://ualr.edu/tv/2014/12/03/university-television-airs-basketball-game-of-the-week/
http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/12/03/university-television-airs-basketball-game-of-the-week/#commentsWed, 03 Dec 2014 18:21:51 +0000http://ualr.edu/tv/?p=1341UALR University Television is airing a UALR Basketball Game of the Week on Wednesdays at 11:00 am and 7:30 pm. A game from the…

UALR University Television is airing a UALR Basketball Game of the Week on Wednesdays at 11:00 am and 7:30 pm. A game from the previous week of either the women’s or men’s basketball teams will be featured. We selected Wednesday evening because there was only one home game that day of the week – so Trojan fans will be able to cheer at the Jack Stephens Center and then watch a featured game the following week on University Television.

Hello, I’m Darrell Heath with the UALR College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences; welcome to The Night Sky.

The holiday season is upon us and before we all succumb to the rigors of gift buying, family get-togethers and too much eggnog let’s take a little bit of time to step outside and see what’s happening in our night sky.

But be sure and bundle up when you do because the nights are much chillier now, especially as we get closer to the winter solstice on December 21st. As you may know, the reason for the seasons is the Earth’s 23 and a half-degree tilt upon its axis as it orbits around the Sun. This axial tilt means that the two hemispheres of our planet are either tilted towards or away from the Sun at various times throughout the year and this brings about a corresponding change in the amount of solar radiation and heating a given hemisphere will receive. On June 20th or 21st our Northern Hemisphere is at its maximum amount of tilt towards the Sun and this marks the summer solstice. Six months later, on either December 21st or 22nd the northern hemisphere is at its maximum amount of tilt away from the Sun. On the day of the winter solstice the Sun at noon will be at its lowest position all year and it will also spend the least amount of time above the horizon. The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night of the entire year. Be sure and mark the Sun’s noon position on or around this date and watch what happens over the coming days. Slowly, but surely, the Sun’s noon time position will get higher and higher over time and the day length will gradually increase until finally, during June’s summer solstice, we see the Sun reach its highest point of the year only to start getting lower and lower in the days that lead up to winter and the whole process starts all over again.

OK, moving on from our own planet, let’s take a look at one that hardly has any axial tilt at all: it’s the King of the Planets, Jupiter, and it returns to our evening skies this month. Look for Jupiter high up in our eastern sky by midnight within the constellation of Leo the Lion. In fact, Jupiter will be within just a few degrees of Leo’s brightest star, Regulus (the Heart of the Lion). By the end of the month Jupiter will have risen two hours earlier than it did at the beginning of the month, making it available for viewing much earlier in the evening. By the middle of the month Jupiter will be the brightest object in our evening sky outside of the moon.

With a pair of binoculars you should be able to see four of its brightest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. If you watch closely you can witness these Jovian satellites waltzing around their lord and master. Some nights you may only see one or two while the others are hiding behind Jupiter’s other side, on other nights you might be treated to seeing all four strung out like Christmas lights around an ornament. The Jovian moons all orbit within the same plane as the planet’s equator and so we always see them just to the left or right of Jupiter’s equator. Once every six years we get to see the orbital plane of these satellites tilted edge on to our perspective and we are currently within one of these alignments. What this means for owners of small telescopes is that you can occasionally see the moons passing in front of one another or passing through another’s shadow. There are more than a dozen of these events occurring throughout the month of December and if you pick up a copy of this month’s Astronomy or Sky & Telescope magazine you can find a schedule with the times for when they occur.

Even a small telescope will reveal Jupiter’s most striking feature: its stripes. The bright stripes are known as zones and represent upcurrents of cooler gas rising to the upper cloud decks while the darker bands are referred to as belts, which represent warmer material descending back into the interior of the planet. Then there is that other distinctive mark of Jupiter’s, the Great Red Spot, a gigantic storm that has been raging in the Jovian atmosphere for at least 350 years. We don’t know exactly why the storm is red, perhaps it is due to material being dredged up from deep inside Jupiter or maybe, as recent studies suggest, it could be due to chemical compounds undergoing changes after having been exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. But there is something very weird going on with the Red Spot. Over the past few years it’s color has changed from that of a brick red to a pale, salmon pink. Even more disturbing is the fact that the Spot is shrinking in size. Over the past 40 years the Spot has lost 30 percent of its original width and the rate of shrinkage has even accelerated within recent years. It may be that within our lifetime the famous Red Spot will disappear altogether. You’ll need a telescope to see it as well as a schedule for it’s visible transit times, which can be obtained by visiting the Sky & Telescope website.

No celebration of Christmas is complete without a festive light display and this month nature provides us with a truly spectacular one, the Geminid Meteor Shower, one of the year’s very best meteor shower events. While you can see Geminid meteors anywhere from December 4th to the 17th, the peak nights will be on December 13th-14th and the 14th-15th. As the name suggests, the radiant (or place upon the sky from which all the meteors appear to originate) is the constellation of Gemini; which can be seen just above the eastern horizon at around 8PM. The nominal peak night is on the 14th and under good viewing conditions it’s possible to see anywhere from 90 to 100 or more meteor streaks per hour. Fortunately the waning moon does not rise until much later in the evening so it won’t spoil the show.

The Geminids have been lighting up our mid-December skies since at least 1862 and has steadily increased in intensity since the 1930’s. But for many years there was a mystery associated with this shower. Most of our meteor showers are the result of comet dust burning up in our atmosphere but, oddly, there is no known comet to account for the Geminid meteor stream. It wasn’t until October of 1983 that astronomers finally found the source for this spectacular meteor shower: it wasn’t a comet but an asteroid named Phaethon 3200. Phaethon orbits around the Sun in just 1.4 years and at its closest approach to the Sun it’s less than half the Mercury-Sun distance. This close encounter with the Sun heats Phaethon up to around 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to cause thermal fracturing of the asteroid and to release a trail of gravel and dust in the wake of its orbit. It’s this debris that we see burning up in our atmosphere when Earth plows through the meteor stream.

Here are a few of my tips for enjoying this wonderful celestial display:

First off you must get to the best dark sky site you can find. That may mean driving into the country for you city dwellers and away from all the light pollution.

Let your eyes become adapted to seeing in the dark. This usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes of being in the dark without having any bright light hitting your eye. Avoid house lights, car lights, or light from cell phones and tablet devices. It only takes a few seconds of exposure to bright light to ruin your night vision. Use a flashlight with red plastic film over it in order to see with, red light will not harm your dark adaptation.

Stay both warm and hydrated. Wear clothes suitable for the weather, I often suggest wearing layers that you take off or put back on as needed. Keep water and warm beverages on hand. Avoid alcoholic beverages as they can impair your night vision. Also, keep lots of snacks high in calories on hand. If the night is cold your body is going to expend lots of calories to stay warm and you’ll need the snacks as fuel to keep you going.

While the shower’s radiant is in the east during the early evening you can expect to see meteors in just about any part of the sky. Spread some blankets out on the ground or use reclining lawn chairs. Mainly, just get comfortable and enjoy the show!

That’s all for now but be sure and check out our Night Sky web page for more astronomy news and viewing tips.

Happy Holiday’s from all of us here at The Night Sky and UALR Television. Until next time, be sure to get outside, look up, and wonder.

]]>http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/12/02/highlights-of-our-december-sky-transcript/feed/0From Child Slave to Abolitionisthttp://ualr.edu/tv/2014/11/17/from-child-slave-to-abolitionist/
http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/11/17/from-child-slave-to-abolitionist/#commentsMon, 17 Nov 2014 22:38:01 +0000http://ualr.edu/tv/?p=1306Jean-Robert Cadet is a former child slave, known as a restavek in Haiti. In 2009 he received the President Clinton Global Initiative Commitment Award.…

]]> Jean-Robert Cadet is a former child slave, known as a restavek in Haiti. In 2009 he received the President Clinton Global Initiative Commitment Award. Mr. Cadet spoke at UALR November 3rd to discuss his book and his organization, Jean R. Cadet Restavek Organization, that advocates the end of child slavery. This lecture was sponsored by the UALR William G. Cooper, Jr. Honors Program.

]]>http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/11/17/from-child-slave-to-abolitionist/feed/0Central Arkansas Astronomical Society Star Partyhttp://ualr.edu/tv/2014/11/17/central-arkansas-astronomical-society-star-party/
http://ualr.edu/tv/2014/11/17/central-arkansas-astronomical-society-star-party/#commentsMon, 17 Nov 2014 18:03:03 +0000http://ualr.edu/tv/?p=1299STAR PARTY IS CANCELLED! This Saturday, November 22nd, will be the last Central Arkansas Astronomical Society start party event of the year. As always,…

This Saturday, November 22nd, will be the last Central Arkansas Astronomical Society start party event of the year. As always, these events are free and open to one and all. No special equipment or knowledge is required for you to take part. Just show up and be curious about our universe.

The party starts at 7:00pm and ends at 10:00 pm at the Woolly Hollow State Park. Bad weather could cancel the event. For more information, www.caasatro.org